Monday, March first was an interesting day for many reasons. The first of a month is always exciting, and this one blessed us with weather of all kinds, sun, snow, wetness, wind, you name it. While it was still sunny though, I made my self some lunch, Annie’s Mac and Cheese and spinach on the kitchen stove. As I watched my pot never boil, a good friend and housemate of mine, Ryan Schlosser, came in breathing heavily, red faced and sweating, this was our conversation:
Me: Hey dude! You go for a run?
Ryan: Yeah I’m trying to run a marathon.
Me: Oh nice, you training? How far did you go today?
Ryan: So far I’ve done fourteen.
He shoved a banana in his mouth.
Me: Oh, you are running a marathon right now!?!?
He chugged some water.
Ryan: Yeah I’ll be back in an hour! I’d love it if you’d run that last five miles with me.
He shoved fruit snacks in his pocket and exited our home.
Ryan: I’ll be back in an hour!
My jaw dropped. That man seemed very crazed.
An hour came and went and the sun disappeared and large snowflakes now fell quickly, pushed in all directions by an unforgiving wind. I pulled on my running clothes and waited for Ryan to come by the house to refuel before embarking on the final leg of his very impromptu marathon. It was astonishing, he jogged in and drank water out of an old Chinese food container, ate another banana and then took off again. I struggled to keep up as we began running and marveled at the fact that this non-runner of a man was at mile 21 of a marathon he had not trained for and moving at a pace of eight minutes per mile. While the ice water accumulated in my shoes and I listened to Ryan’s grunts of pain and watched his feet move him ever forward, I thought, I need to know more, so here is the interview I had with Ryan Schlosser about the marathon that surprised us all, even him.
Me: Why did you run a marathon today:
Ryan: It is the one-year anniversary of when I started thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail. So, I wanted to go for a run just to celebrate the day but I did not intend to run a marathon. I thought I might run a half marathon but once I got to nine miles in felt better than I thought I would so I decided to run a full marathon. Since doing the thru- hike I have missed the part of asking my body to give more than I ever thought it could, so I wanted to try doing that with the marathon today, challenging my body to do more than what my mind thinks it can.
Me: So, you missed that?
Ryan: Yeah, it has been like 7 months since I finished thru-hiking and I haven’t done much big physical activity since then. After a couple months of R&R I felt old, like in my forties, so this was a way of reminding myself that I still have that energy and determination that I had when I started thru-hiking.
Me: Can describe the breaking of that mental barrier today?
Ryan: So, my legs were pretty tired the whole time I was running, even from like 2 miles in, but my cardio felt good, I didn’t feel out of breath. Since my legs hurt my body wanted to stop but I knew that I could run 26.2 miles. Once I got to twenty miles I thought I was close enough that I didn’t care how my body felt anymore.
Me: Why did you want to do the AT?
Ryan: Can I plug my podcast?
Me: Yes, that’s actually what I was going for.
Ryan: Walking and Talking: An Appalachian Trail Thru- Hike is my podcast, and if people really want an in depth answer they should listen to the first two episodes of that. But mostly, I got into hiking freshman year and I was looking for something big to focus my time and energy into.
Me: Do you think that you did your seven-months-ago-self proud today?
Ryan: Yeah, I think so, I was pretty broken when I got to the top a Katahdin at the end of my thru-hike, physically and mentally. My body felt like I was 45 or 50. Since finishing I have felt like I didn’t have the energy reserve I used to, so yeah I am proud of myself.
Me: What, more specifically got you through today?
Ryan: Lactic acid run 175 bpm, a Spotify playlist, I listened to the whole thing, it’s three hours and thirteen minutes long. There is also this thru-hiker that I met who had run 4 marathons before the AT, his trail name was Lefty and he said that running a marathon is a lot easier than thru-hiking because you just start running and keeping running and then it’s over, so I thought of that.
Me: How do you feel about the fact that you ran a pretty damn impressive marathon?
Ryan: I haven’t really processed it yet, I mean I didn’t train for it or intend to run a marathon, I wasn’t thinking about the time I was just thinking about finishing. But now that I am done and people have told me that that was a good time, maybe I will be encouraged to really train for one.